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March 12, 2015 | While campaign workers (and increasingly television viewers) breathe a sigh of relief the morning after an election, for lobbyists it’s time to get back to work to bolster relationships with incumbents or begin them with new members. That’s often done in the form of contributions (surprise!). According to an OpenSecrets.org analysis, 948 lobbyists wrote more…

January 30, 2015 | Yesterday’s Senate vote on the KeystoneXL pipeline showed some sharp breaks along party lines, as no Republicans voted against the bill — but also along lines of financial support from special interest groups. Last night, we noted that senators who voted for the pipeline project to go forward have received, on average, seven times more…

January 20, 2015 | The economy is growing steadily, unemployment is down, the stock market is soaring, gas prices are diving. Good luck getting a rise out of someone by mentioning the deficit at a Washington dinner party, something that would have been unimaginable in the not-so-distant past. There’s plenty of good news for President Obama to dwell on…

December 3, 2014 | This article was cross-posted at TIME.com. The defeat of the Keystone XL pipeline bill in the Senate last month may have been viewed as a blow to Sen. Mary Landrieu‘s re-election bid, but her battle to get the bill passed was warmly received by members of the oil and gas industry, including Keystone’s parent company.…

November 19, 2014 | Senate Democrats successfully blocked a bill Tuesday that would have approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial measure fell one vote shy of overcoming a filibuster, with 59 senators supporting it and 41 opposing. The vote followed the bill’s approval in the House by a much wider margin, with 252 lawmakers voting to advance the pipeline.…

October 31, 2014 | This story is cross-posted at TIME.com With just a few days remaining in the first quarter of 2014, Mary Landrieu did something generous: The embattled Democratic senator from Louisiana, herself in the midst of an exceedingly tough re-election race, used her leadership PAC to give $5,000 to the campaign of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who…

October 9, 2014 | Spending by groups that don’t disclose their donors in the 2014 midterm elections has crested $100 million, a figure that is well ahead of what was spent on congressional races at this point in any other cycle. And the most is yet to come. How much more? Probably at least another $100 million, if past…

September 2, 2014 | Americans who have taken advantage of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to toss aside overall political contribution limits are one in a million. Actually, they’re slightly fewer than one in a million. Of the 318 million people in the U.S., a whopping 310 donors have given more than the total $123,200 they were allowed to…

August 12, 2014 | With fewer than three months until the general election, campaigns are in full swing as candidates push their supporters to show up at the polls. There’s lots of buzz about what Congress will look like after November 4th, and who will be moving to Washington, but the list of those who won’t be heading back…

July 8, 2014 | Despite objections from a handful of Democrats, the Senate voted on Monday to move forward with a pro-hunting bill that has delighted most gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association. Introduced by embattled incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act (S. 2363) would unlock funding to build shooting ranges on public land while easing hunting restrictions. But…

March 24, 2014 | A bill just signed by the president continues subsidizing homeowners in flood-prone areas. Neither it nor a 2012 bill that would have done away with subsidies over time happened without a lot of lobbying action.

June 14, 2012 | How many U.S. congressional representatives have invested recently in JPMorgan Chase? How many House members hold stock in Apple? And just how rich are your senators? The public got at least a glimpse at some of these answers this morning.

May 17, 2012 | Republicans and Democrats rushed this week to argue that stronger government regulation would or wouldn't have forestalled JPMorgan Chase's multibillion dollar losses. But they didn't mention whether they owned shares in the bank themselves. At least 38 of them do.

October 31, 2010 | Behind the scenes, several current senators have been pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of fellow Democratic candidates. Could these big givers be positioning themselves to man the helm of the Senate Democratic caucus if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid falls to Republican challenger Sharron Angle?

August 27, 2010 | Want to know which sitting member of Congress has received the most money from the oil and gas industry? Which lawmaker has received the most from environmentalists? The alternative energy industry? Now you can find that information in one centralized location on OpenSecrets.org -- presented with sort-able and down-loadable options for your convenience.

August 25, 2010 | In the final hours before primary election day, a shadowy new political group is comparing Louisiana Democratic Congressional candidate Cedric Richmond to a comic book villain and accusing him of committing all seven deadly sins. Want to know who's funding the attack? Too bad.

June 2, 2010 | A preliminary Center for Responsive Politics analysis of Rattner's campaign donations since 2007 indicates he's donated tens of thousands of dollars to federal candidates and committees, including $36,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, $14,250 to the Democratic National Committee, $4,600 to President Barack Obama and $2,300 to Vice President Joe Biden.

May 19, 2010 | Massive campaign war chests and establishment endorsements were not enough to be victorious in some of the country's most contested Senate primaries Tuesday night. One sitting Senator was defeated and another is heading to a run-off in three weeks, as candidates worked to distance themselves from Washington and position themselves as crusaders against special interests in charged anti-incumbent environments.

May 5, 2010 | "Drill baby, drill" or "dead on arrival"? As clean-up crews battle the sprawling effects of last week's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, politicians and advocacy groups are already speculating how this oil rig accident and resulting environmental disaster will impact the politics of American offshore drilling.

April 22, 2010 | Freshman Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) is one of just three House Republicans bucking their party leadership by offering appropriation requests for fiscal year 2011. Cao's requests -- better known as earmarks -- total about $517 million, of which $800,000 would be destined for two projects at a hospital in New Orleans. While that's itself a small slice of Cao's total requests, it's notable since Cao also accepted campaign contributions from two of its executives.

January 27, 2010 | ANTI-ACORN ACTIVIST ARRESTED IN FAILED ATTEMPT TO WIRETAP SENATOR: Conservative activist and filmmaker James O'Keefe and three others were arrested Monday during a failed attempt to wiretap the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. The four men apparently posed as utility repairmen.

October 1, 2009 | A new collaborative investigation between the Sunlight Foundation and Center for Responsive Politics shows that since January 2007, more than 500 individual lobbyists donated roughly $2.8 million to 61 members of Congress who took money from at least 10 lobbyists and also received money from their clients' PACs or employees. Among the recipients were 11 senators who sit on the Senate Finance Committee.

September 28, 2009 | "CO2 IS GREEN" FLUSH WITH GREENBACKS: The men at the helm of two new energy advocacy groups trying to derail the climate change bill in the Senate have been consistent campaign donors throughout the years.

July 9, 2009 | Interest groups have filled lawmakers' campaign coffers with cash, and spent millions on lobbyists to promote their positions. So it's not entirely surprising that some lawmakers can't make up their minds on health care reform. Here are a handful of examples of members of the Senate, who have tried to position themselves on multiple sides of the health care debate.

February 18, 2009 | As the story behind the embattled investment company Stanford Financial Group develops, we thought we'd take an even closer look at the seeds the company may have tried to plant in Washington via campaign contributions. When looking at ALL lawmakers to collect money from the company's PAC and employees (not just members of the current Congress), some additional, important names appear at the top of the recipient list.

February 17, 2009 | Money manager Robert Allen Stanford now has two things in common with embattled investment manager Bernard Madoff: both have come under scrutiny for allegedly defrauding their investors, and both have given significant funds to politicians. Between its PAC and its employees, Stanford Financial Group has given $2.4 million to federal candidates, parties and committees since 2000.

February 12, 2009 | The close ties between Rep. John Murtha and a Washington lobbying firm raided by the FBI have put the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat under greater scrutiny. The lobbyists at PMA Group have been Murtha's fifth most generous campaign donor over time, but he is just one of 284 members of the 111th Congress who have collected money from the firm, which specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients. In total, PMA Group's employees and its political action committee have given current members of Congress $3.4 million since 1989.

September 30, 2008 | Registered lobbyists aren't just getting the attention of lawmakers while on the job. Like any other member of the public, they, too, are able to contribute up to the maximum amount per election to candidates of their choice. The Center for Responsive Politics has identified the congressional races with candidates who are receiving the most money from registered lobbyists.

September 29, 2008 | The oil and gas industry, under the spotlight this fall with energy at the forefront of political discourse, isn't hesitating to put some of its record profits into the hands of candidates who support its cause (or those it's seeking to convert). So far this election cycle, the oil and gas industry has given $12.3 million total to congressional candidates. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has identified the candidates who have received the most money from oil and gas interests in this election cycle, and Capital Eye selected a few races to more deeply examine the impact of well-digger dollars on politics.

September 25, 2008 | Private interests and members of the public aren't the only ones betting their money on the congressional candidates they hope will win (or retain) congressional seats. Lawmakers in both parties have a vested interest in seeing their own candidates succeed this November, with Democrats wanting to strengthen their majority and Republicans hoping to minimize their losses. Here we look at some of the candidates getting the largest cash infusions from their own parties, indicating a close race.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

September 12, 2008 | Uncle Sam bailed out Freddie Mac and the company's twin sister, Fannie Mae, this week, and the next in line in the Wall Street family to get a helping hand might just be Lehman Brothers. Executives at the struggling investment bank are looking to sell the company with assistance from the government--and fast--as its stock plunges. Although the government isn't expected to completely bail out Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, the company has built a strong financial relationship with politicians over the years and coincidentally ranks fourth in the largest contributors in the race for the White House.

July 31, 2008 | While this year's own battle over offshore drilling for oil has largely been a skirmish between the deep-pocketed oil and gas industry and grassroots environmentalists, senators along the coast in particular have to pay attention to an additional industry that's a player on Capitol Hill: tourism.

July 17, 2008 | President Bush's decision this week to lift the federal moratorium on offshore drilling defied the Democratic Party's long-held opposition to oil exploration along the U.S. coastline. But recently more Democrats are indicating that they might change their minds, leaving environmentalists wondering whether the lawmakers will stick to their ideological guns or be swayed by high gas prices and campaign contributions from big industries.

January 25, 2006 | Spending by the right and left aims to influence Alito’s Supreme Court chancesBy Courtney Mabeus January 25, 2006 | As the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito moves to the full Senate for debate, ideological groups from the right and left have been spending millions to influence key senators, especially the fabled “Gang of…

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